Giulio Maspero’s book Rethinking the Filioque with the Greek Fathers addresses the seemingly perennial theological debate that has divided Christendom for a thousand years through a close reading of the development of trinitarian doctrine in the early Church. For those unfamiliar with the filioque controversy, a brief overview will help set the stage for Maspero’s book. “Filioque” is a Latin phrase that means “and the Son.” It was first added to the third heading of the Niceno-Constantinoplitan Creed (“I believe in the Holy Spirit…who proceeds from the Father and the Son”) at the regional Council of Toledo held in 589 and later adopted by the Western Latin-speaking Church under the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff. Greek-speaking Christians saw this as problematic both ecclesiastically and theologically. Ecclesiastically, they saw it as an illegitimate addition to the Creed without ecumenical consent. It would be like a single state in the US making a change to the US Constitution and declaring that all the other states had to accept the change whether they liked it or not. Theologically, Greek-speaking authors thought that the addition of the filioque compromised the unity of God, which was seen to be found in the Father as the sole cause of the Trinity, by adding a second cause within the Godhead. Two causes meant there were two Gods. Ultimately, this became one of the issues that led to the schism between East and West Christendom in 1054 that has never been healed.

Maspero’s book is not an attempt to address all the issues of the Filioque. The history is long and this ground has been covered by others, such as A. Edward Siecienski’s excellent historical survey The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (Oxford University Press, 2010). Any reader interested in Maspero’s book should read Siecienski’s book first to familiarize themselves with the history. Instead, Maspero focuses on giving a nuanced historical reading of the development of filioque within the development of trinitarian doctrine in the early church from Origen (c 185-254) to Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395). At each stage, Maspero is careful to explain how these authors were addressing specific issues in their own time and how that affected their articulation of Trinitarian doctrine.

For example, Origen (the subject of chapter 1) was addressing both Stoic materialism and Gnostic cosmology when he made a sharp distinction between God and creation but kept an ordered hierarchy within the Trinity such that the Father was more truly God than the Son, and the Son more God than the Holy Spirit. This Logos-theology (as he calls it) resulted in two models of the Trinity: the linear model (Father → Logos → Pneuma) and the triangular model ( Logos ← Father → Pneuma). These were never resolved in Origen and led to the Arian controversy at the beginning of the fourth century. Maspero then traces (chapters 2 and 3) how these two models worked themselves out in the fourth century in authors like Epiphanius, Pseudo-Athanasius, Athanasius, Eusebius of Caesarea and Marcellus of Ancyra. While Athanasius’s nature (physis)-theology approach might have helped address the Arian debates over the status of the Son, it was insufficient to answer the so-called Pneumatomachians (=Spirit Fighters) who affirmed the divinity of the Son but denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. It is this debate seen in authors like Gregory of Nazianzus and especially Gregory of Nyssa (chapters 4 and 5) that Maspero focuses on as the immediate context for the development of the Greek filioque.

I think this is a particularly important contribution not only to debates about the filioque but also to general discussions about the Trinitarian debates of the fourth century. Too often the Pneumatomachian controversy is an appendix to the Arian controversy. “Once the Arian controversy was solved,” so the story typically goes, “there were some weird people who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit but that was an anomaly and everybody just moved on until the Christological controversies of the fifth century.” Instead, Maspero argues that the Pneumatomachian controversy highlighted a gap in the nature (physis) model that made the Pneumatomachian position a comprehensible position to hold. It is in their response to the Pneumatomachians that Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa shifted from the question of nature to the question of relation that allowed them to sufficiently answer the Pneumatomachian objections: the identity of the Son and Spirit is distinguished by a difference in the way they relate to the Father (Son is begotten; Spirit proceeds). More so, the Spirit, argued the two Gregories, is metaphysically placed in between the Father and the Son such that the Father can remain cause while admitting an active role of the Son in the procession of the Holy Spirit.

Maspero then tests his hypothesis by comparing these Greek developments with the Syrian theological tradition (chapter 6). Here Maspero once again demonstrates historical nuance in attending to the linguistic difficulties in translating concepts developed in a Greek-speaking context into a Syrian one. Namely, Gregory of Nazianzus was able to distinguish procession as a general category (proion) from the specific relation of the Spirit to the Father (ekporeutōs). Not only does the Syrian Church’s adaptation of the Creed in 410 explicitly say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son—as well as being present in their own nascent theologians such as Ephrem the Syrian—but Syriac translations of the Cappadocians use filioque-type language to express Gregory’s terminological distinction that was unavailable to them in Syriac. When placed in the highly technical Trinitarian debates of the fourth century, it becomes clear that this evidence isn’t merely the result of translation, but of conceptual pressure arising from the Pneumatomachian debates at the end of the fourth century.

The rest of the book is a comparison between what Maspero has discovered in the Greek (and Syrian) Fathers, with the theological developments in the West, specifically Augustine. Augustine, as the most important Latin-speaking theologian, is usually charged with being the source of the filioque. In chapter 7, Maspero addresses the issue of the so-called “psychological analogy” of the Trinity which plays an important part in Augustine’s De Trinitate. Was this a cause of the filioque? Maspero argues that it was not because he also has discovered a similar, though not identical, psychological analogy at work in Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, and the seventh-century theologian Anastasius of Sinai (which he argues is independent of Augustine’s influence). Secondly, in chapter 8, Maspero takes a close look at the metaphysical differences between Augustine and the Cappadocians. While he thinks that Augustine is at a conceptual disadvantage compared to the Greek-speaking East—specifically on the ontological status of relation—Maspero shows how Augustine is driven by similar conceptual pressures (a shared theological grammar) as Gregory of Nyssa to affirm a role of the Son in the procession of the Spirit.

Maspero finally concludes with a summary of his argument and an ecumenical proposal: affirm a Greek understanding of the active (but not causal) role of the Son in the procession of the Holy Spirit.

Maspero has written a nuanced and highly technical, historical, and theological investigation of the “Greek Filioque”. While he gives helpful summaries of his argument along the way to mark the trail he is blazing, this is still an admittedly difficult book and requires a slow and careful reading. Those unfamiliar with scholarship on the Trinitarian debates of the fourth century would do well to read Lewis Ayres’s Nicaea and Its Legacy or Mark DelCogliano’s introduction and translation of Basil of Caesarea’s Against Eunomius. Nevertheless, this is an important and necessary book for three reasons. First, Maspero demonstrates how to do historical theology well. Historical theology isn’t just appealing to what theologians of the past have said, but why they said it. Second, I think Maspero does an excellent job of showing how biblical exegesis was an integral part of these debates. These early Christians weren’t just philosophizing or engaging in abstract conceptual arguments for their own sake. Their reflections arise out of their close reading of the Bible to address the needs of their time. While we might not always understand the nuances of their exegesis, we should walk away from Maspero’s book appreciating just how important the Bible was for them in these debates. Third, remembering the role the filioque played in the division of 1054, Maspero’s work is an important contribution to healing those rifts so that we, as Jesus prayed, might be one.

Reviewed by Ryan Clevenger

Publisher’s page: https://www.eerdmans.com/9781467466417/rethinking-the-filioque-with-the-greek-fathers/

A review essay of Larry Martin’s Charles Fox Parham

“Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out” (Psalm 109:14 NKJV).

Larry Martin, Charles Fox Parham: The Unlikely Father of Modern Pentecostalism (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2022), 224 pages, ISBN 9781641238014.

Who are we, and where do we come from? My Classical Pentecostal relatives in the second half of the twentieth century weren’t concerned with history. Rather than looking back, they saw themselves standing on the edge of the future. They concluded that “fire-baptized, Holy Ghost” intercessions were a demonstration of the “latter rain” (Joel 2:23; Hosea 6:3). Through vigorous worship, tongues-speech, and healing prayers, they were part of the climax of the Christian mission.

Although they wouldn’t have used the term, my grandparents, uncles, and cousins were avowed restorationists,¹ finalizing the last days revival. They believed Pentecostalism was providentially birthed in the opening of the twentieth century. With the exceptions of Luther, Wesley, and Finney, all that took place prior was a byproduct of the corruptible “dark ages.”

This perspective wasn’t exclusive to my family. It seems that many Pentecostals “prefer a romantic, almost mythical view of the founding of Pentecostalism.”² Randall J. Stephens indicates Spirit-baptized authors were “largely ahistorical,” portraying the “Pentecostal revival as dropping from heaven like a sacred meteor.”³ Grant Wacker quoted an early figure who said that movement’s “source is from the skies.”⁴

Growing up, the folklore from the Topeka Outpouring (1901) and the Azusa Street Revival (1906-1909) was recounted in pulpits and scribbled in hagiographic texts. However, the actual details of these defining events were fuzzy. I was told there were men who fasted, prayed, and inaugurated the glorious latter rain, but I seldom heard more than a cursory mention of their names. One of the white-haired evangelists related the following in the 1980s:

That era was holy—without all the foolishness and stupidity we see today. That revival was carried forward without the hoopla, famous names, or fleshly advertising sheets. For us, it was like the glory of the Lord enveloped us. We were tasting the nectar of heaven.

I have no doubt this preacher’s remarks came from an overwhelming encounter. Revivals are euphoric. I believe in the existence of Spirit-led outpourings.⁵ Yet, overwhelming altar experiences can be undermined when we lose our footing. Without a definable heritage, it’s difficult to stand.

The ahistorical mentality of Classical Pentecostalism invites stakeholders to turn a blind eye to unsavory elements. No one enjoys grappling with racism, egotism, and aberrant doctrines. Delving into British-Israelism,⁶ crazed apocalyptism,⁷ and sensationalistic self-promotions⁸ doesn’t put a smile on anyone’s faces. Some of the past is fun to explore, but much of it is better left in the shadows. Modern Pentecostals appreciate the innovations, fervor, and supernaturalism of John Alexander Dowie (1847-1907), Maria Woodworth Etter (1844-1924), Frank Sandford (1862-1948), John G. Lake (1870-1935), and Charles Parham (1873-1929)⁹ but many are embarrassed by their unconventional ideas and practices.

As the Spirit-filled tribe forms origin stories, we give ourselves freedom to pick and choose. All historians are editors, but we must be careful that we don’t take too many liberties. A movement without legitimate identity markers will always be transformed into something else eventually. Is the Spirit-filled movement merely another form of Fundamentalism,¹⁰ Evangelicalism,¹¹ Seeker-sensitivity,¹² or politically-infused Christian nationalism.¹³ This is important to grapple with.

People forget Pentecostalism was originally an offshoot of radical holiness—cantankerous sectarians with an other-worldly ethos that “ran counter to the practices of society.” Their bizarre supernaturalism, cataclysmic warnings, and radical mission strategies brought “criticism and contempt.”¹⁴ I know dozens of Pentecostals embarrassed by previous generations. They would prefer to sweep the raucous elements under the carpet, canceling the older worldview and impulses. They have set out to deconstruct Pentecostalism, making it better intersect with twenty-first century sensibilities. Is this a reasonable endeavor or not? Who gets to decide?

Regardless of other concerns, Pentecostals still have to grapple with their originating identities. The movement didn’t just fall out of the sky in 1901, like a meteor. There are continuities and discontinuities shaping our trajectories. The Spirit-baptized were and are a product of a particular ethos. Shall we deny the people, places and perspectives that gestated the movement?

Dr. Larry Martin’s new book Charles Fox Parham: The Unlikely Father of Modern Pentecostalism is an indispensable remedy for ecclesiastical amnesia. He delves into the turbulent story of the originator of Pentecostalism. The author makes a compelling case for Parham’s ascendancy. Many will not relish the assertion that Parham is the father of the movement. Martin writes,

In the past 50 years, it has become popular to favor William J. Seymour as the founder of Pentecostalism … If the facts of history allowed it and given a choice, a vast majority will pick Seymour over Parham. Seymour was the kind of man Parham is not: Seymour was humble and morally pure. In every way known to us, it seems he was a better man … He was a great preacher, a great Christian, and a great man … None of that, however, can change the facts of history, which demonstrates that Parham founded modern Pentecostalism.¹⁵

Larry Martin

As Martin’s book builds, he takes readers through the highs and lows of Charles Fox Parham’s ministry, documenting his subtleties. The contours of this ex-Methodist’s doctrines and missional achievements fill hundreds of footnoted pages. Martin acknowledges Parham’s giftings and unremitting drive but doesn’t shy away from his egotism,¹⁶ doctrinal errors,¹⁷ racism,¹⁸ and moral lapses. In fact, the “shadows” are where Martin demonstrates his nimble skill as a theologian and historian. I commend him for the difficult task he has accomplished. With clear, cogent writing, Martin tells the story of this flawed Pentecostal figure, and what his ministry means for us today. Readers must pay attention to what he has uncovered. Martin’s book is crucial for re-centering our movement’s origins, distinctives, and trajectories.

Pentecostalism is undergoing an identity crisis. In an eagerness to grow and appeal to suburban housewives, Spirit-filled leaders are smoothing out the rough edges. Some are embarrassed by their forefathers’ rhetoric. Since these gatekeepers downplay gifts of the Spirit in Sunday morning worship services,¹⁹ it’s no wonder “Pentecostal” adherents rarely speak in tongues anymore. ²⁰ The revivalistic fervor that characterized the movement a century ago has certainly waned.

Some are rightfully asking, “What does it mean to be a Spirit-filled believer?” One longtime friend said to me, “These days we’re just like the Baptist church down the street, except we believe in tongues. Well, at least we do on paper.”

Things are certainly in a flux. Pentecostals probably will not recognize where we’re going if we don’t remember where we’ve been. Our flawed fathers have something to teach us about sin, brokenness, and the meaning of forgiveness. I think Larry Martin’s Charles Fox Parham: The Unlikely Father of Modern Pentecostalism is indispensable. It can help us find a way to reconcile and redeem the past.

The iniquities of the fathers must be remembered. The spiritual sons and daughters are inexplicably anchored to the forgotten tales.

Reviewed by J. D. King

Notes

¹ Edith Blumhofer suggests restorationism is “the expression of yearning to recapture in the last moments of time, the pristine purity of a long-gone era . . . the end times restoration of the apostolic church.” Edith Blumhofer, Restoring the Faith: The Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism and American Culture (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 3.

² Larry Martin, Charles Fox Parham: The Unlikely Father of Modern Pentecostalism (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2022), 18. Two titles from the early years substantiate this outlook: The Apostolic Faith Restored (1916) and Suddenly From Heaven: A History of the Assemblies of God (1961).

³ Randall J. Stephens, “Assessing the Roots of Pentecostalism: A Historiographic Essay,” The American Religious Experience at West Virginia University. http://are.as.wvu.edu/pentroot.htm (accessed July 20, 2022).

⁴ Grant Wacker, Heaven Below 142.

5 I was a leader and participant in the Smithton Outpouring (1996-2000), a revival that sparked in a rural Missouri town of 532 people. Over a quarter of a million people came through the doors of that church. See Ron McGatlin, I Saw The Smithton Outpouring (Mt. Airy, NC: Basileia, 2002). https://openheaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ISawTheSmithtonOutpouring.pdf

⁶ British-Israelism is a quasi-racist view “that maintained that the Anglo-Saxon people were the ten lost tribes of Israel.” Edith Blumhofer, Assemblies of God: A Chapter in the Story of American Pentecostalism Volume 1 – To 1941 (Springfield, Missouri: Gospel Publishing House. 1989), 75. Anglo-Israelism was embraced by Frank W. Sandford, John Alexander Dowie, and Charles Parham. It was also accepted, to some degree, by George Jeffreys, F.F. Bosworth, and John G. Lake.

⁷ Charles F. Parham once wrote, “I have met eight or ten Elijahs, all the major prophets and some minor ones, Adam, God, David, at least fifty claiming to be Jesus, about thirty of the two witnesses (both male and female), all twelve apostles, the fifth angel, three who were the devil, eight who were the virgin Mary.” Charles Parham, The Apostolic Faith (September 12, 1912), 12.

⁸ John G. Lake “was feisty, pigheaded, and dramatic. He encountered problems in his relationships with fellow missionaries. He was said to boast . . . He was prone to tell tales, particularly accounts that exaggerated his personal accomplishments.” Kemp Pendleton Burpeau, God’s Showman: A Historical Study of John G. Lake and South African/American Pentecostalism (Olso, Norway: Refleks Publishing, 2004), ix-x.

⁹ For more on these historic figures, see J.D. King, Regeneration: A Complete History of Healing in the Christian Church, 3 volumes (Lee’s Summit, Missouri: Christos, 2017).

¹⁰ Assemblies of God General Superintendent David McDowell said, “Praise God that I am a Fundamentalist, and that I am a Pentecostal Fundamentalist”’ McDowell quoted in Stanley Frodsham, “Letter to readers,” Pentecostal Evangel (April 5, 1924),15. He went on to use the term, “Fundamentalists Plus.”

¹¹ Daniel D. Isgrigg, “The Pentecostal Evangelical Church: The Theological Self-Identity of the Assemblies of God as Evangelical ‘Plus'”, A paper presented at the 46th Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies (St. Louis, MO: Mar 9-11, 2017).

¹² Daniel Tomberlin, “What is an Undeconstructed Pentecostal?” DanielTomberlin.net (November 18, 2019). https://www.danieltomberlin.net/what-is-an-unreconstructed-pentecostal/ (accessed July 19, 2022).

¹³ John Burnett, “Christian nationalism is still thriving — and is a force for returning Trump to power,” NPR (January 23, 2022). https://www.npr.org/2022/01/14/1073215412/christian-nationalism-donald-trump (accessed July 20, 2022).

¹⁴ Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing), 1997), 192.

¹⁵ Larry Martin, Charles Fox Parham: The Unlikely Father of Modern Pentecostalism (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2022), 18, 19, 20.

¹⁶ “Parham showed a lack of spiritual and emotional maturity, unable to rise above his churlish attitude to rival leadership and his culturally ingrained racism.” James Robinson, Divine Healing: The Years of Expansion, 1906–1930: Theological Variation in the Transatlantic World (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2014), 27.

¹⁷ Allan Anderson writes that Parham, “entertained notions about the “antichrist” as the reincarnation of Judas Iscariot, did not believe in the immortality of the soul, and held to the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked. He had strange ideas about what constituted the “Body as [the] Bride” of Christ and the meaning of “redemption.” In fact, Parham had an all-around “unorthodox” theology, certainly by evangelical standards!” Alan Anderson, “The Dubious Legacy of Charles Parham: Racism and Cultural Insensitivities among Pentecostals,” Pneuma 27:1 (Spring 2005), 52.

¹⁸ Allan Anderson points out that by 1902, “Parham’s British-Israelism, proclaiming the spiritual and racial superiority of the white Anglo-Saxon race, is full blown, complete with an identification of the throne of David with the British royal family courtesy of the Prophet Jeremiah (who is supposed to have taken King Zedekiah’s daughter to Ireland) and an identification of Britain with “Ephraim” and the United States with “Manasseh” among the ten “lost tribes.” Parham probably got these ideas from Frank Sandford, who was promoting Anglo-Israelism when Parham spent six weeks at his Shiloh community in Maine in 1900. Alan Anderson, “The Dubious Legacy of Charles Parham: Racism and Cultural Insensitivities among Pentecostals,” Pneuma 27:1 (Spring 2005), 52.

¹⁹ A Pentecostal official told me that many of the churches in his denomination downplay the gifts of the Spirit in their services on Sunday. He said that they told him, “We are more concerned about being relevant.” While tongues-speech and displays of spiritual gifts are “common in Latin America and Africa,” only “about half (51%)” of American Pentecostals say “the services they attend frequently include people speaking in tongues.” Russell Heimlich, “Speaking in Tongues,” Pew Research Center (December 27, 2007). https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2007/12/27/speaking-in-tongues/ (accessed July 21, 2022).

²⁰ “The Assemblies of God, one of the nation’s largest Pentecostal denominations with 3 million members, has 66 million members worldwide. Assemblies officials worried about the decline in messages in tongues – or spirit baptism – at a general council meeting this month. The practice decreased by about 3 percent to fewer than 82,000, the lowest total since 1995, according to statistics released by the Assemblies of God.” Sarah Parvini, “Fewer Pentecostals are speaking in tongues,” The Durango Herald (September 6, 2013). https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/fewer-pentecostals-are-speaking-in-tongues/ (accessed July 21, 2022).

Author Gary Rogers speaks with Kirk Hunt about his book, Unlocking The Power Of Fatherhood, and the need for effective men’s ministry in churches.

Kirk Hunt for PneumaReview.com: Who or what inspired you to write Unlocking The Power Of Fatherhood?

Gary Rogers: It started at 4:30am on a Saturday morning. I got up, made my coffee, went upstairs to my office, and asked the Lord what he had to say.  I spent about 2 hours with the Lord as he explained a few things to me. So that you understand the rest of the story, I need to introduce you to my dad.  As a young boy, he contracted polio that left him with a paralyzed right leg. It also left him with a compromised immune system that failed him again, with finality, at the age of 53. The child that the doctor said would never crawl, much less walk, learned to walk without a cane, crutch, or brace.  The child that was destined to become an invalid became a man that everyone turned to in the time of their greatest need. Every day in the life of my youth I got a lesson in Character and Courage. I learned what it was to be a man, and I learned what it was to be a father. I grew up seeing an example of how to overcome the impossible. Through his example, I learned how to take on the challenges of life meant to turn me into a victim and come out the other side as a sovereign. On that Saturday morning, I was inspired to share his life story.

Kirk Hunt: What was the most positive aspect of the process of creating Unlocking?

Gary Rogers: I think it was the journey to discovery surrounding the purpose of the hard times that we all seem to endure. For, it is in the hard times where we are transformed into the people we need to be, to accomplish the purpose for which we were created. That was an epiphany for me, as I had previously seen those times in my life through the lens of failure. More importantly, I think that this revelation has the potential to help many overcome the scourge of victimization that weighs heavily upon them. Seeing the difficult season in a positive transformational light has the potential to set us free to walk into the high purpose of God’s plan for us.

Kirk Hunt: What was your most significant challenge while writing Unlocking?

Gary Rogers: Basically, I had no idea what I was doing, as I am not a professional writer. Everything I wrote was from my own experience without the benefit of research. All I had was a preliminary list of potential chapter headings. I would literally sit down to begin a chapter with only one or two sentences in my head. Things would just flow from there. After 9 or 10 pages of handwritten text, I would come to the end of the chapter and not remember everything I had written. I would go back and review it wondering where all that had come from. I see this entire work as a grace gift from the Lord.

Kirk Hunt: How has your experience with Unlocking informed or influenced your writing?

Gary Rogers: After writing the book I have come to realize the great need for building up men. I have been somewhat surprised by the positive responses I have received from people who have read the book. My passion is growing for making a positive impact on others and empowering them to live life to its fullest.

Todd Still and David Wilhite are editing a series of books on Paul’s reception among the church fathers. The point of the series appears to be that of allowing expertise in Paul and expertise in the patristic writings to mingle and sharpen each other in a new appreciation of Paul’s early reception. The work under review is the second volume to appear in the series.

A proper education in the New Testament usually includes a foray into the Apostolic Fathers (viz. 1 & 2 Clement, Epistle of Polycarp, Martyrdom of Polycarp, the epistles of Ignatius, the Didache, Epistle of Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, and the Epistle to Diognetus), so working with the latter probably did not require any retooling on the part of the NT scholars involved in this project. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to discern which contributors are primarily NT scholars and which patristic scholars merely on the basis of their writings in this volume. (This is less true of the first volume in the series, which is about Tertullian.)

Todd D. Still, The William M. Hinson Professor of Christian Scriptures in the George W. Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University

David E. Wilhite, Professor of Christian Theology at George W. Truett Seminary

The book includes eleven chapters on Paul’s reception among the Apostolic Fathers, along with an Introduction by Wilhite and an Afterword by Andrew Gregory. The chapters include discussions of all the Apostolic Fathers, including those that make no overt uses of Paul. In addition to the editors and Gregory, contributors include L. Stephanie Cobb, David J. Downs, David L. Eastman, Paul Foster, Paul Hartog, Clayton N. Jefford, Harry O. Meier, James Carleton Paget, and Clare K. Rothschild. A great deal is packed into these chapters, and the discussion benefits throughout from recent scholarship’s improved understanding of the more sophisticated ways in which early exegetes (including the NT authors) used Scripture. While this volume cannot take the place of an introduction to the Apostolic Fathers, it provides a good introduction to the transition from the apostolic to the subapostolic periods. Included in that is a sharpened understanding of how the Pauline corpus traveled as a unit, and how the New Testament came to be viewed as Scripture.

Reviewed by John C. Poirier

Publisher’s page: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/apostolic-fathers-and-paul-9780567672308/

Yesterday was Father’s Day. I am grateful for my father. He has always been fully present in my seven siblings’ and my life. We certainly credit his involvement, as well as mom’s participation for any good that we have experienced.

Thank God for parents!

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education convened a group of faith, education, and governmental leaders to discuss the national situation of fathers, families and education. I was humbled to join the conversation on behalf of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conferences’ Faith and Education Coalition.

In our conversation, it was evident that social scientific research and sacred texts agree that fathers are crucial figures in the life and development of children. Indeed, there is an opportunity for private-public partnerships (faith-based and governmental organizations) to address the dismal reality of absent fathers in our society.

The National Center for Fathering points to our society’s appalling extent of fatherlessness:

More than 20 million children live in a home without the physical presence of a father.  Millions more have dads who are physically present, but emotionally absent.  If it were classified as a disease, fatherlessness would be an epidemic worthy of attention as a national emergency.

To add to this research, a few years ago Prison Fellowship re-published a very thought-provoking article concerning children with fathers in prison. The article points out, in part:

There are 2.7 million children with a parent in prison or jail. Ninety-five percent (95%) of all inmates will eventually be released. Ninety-two percent (92%) of parents in prison are fathers. Most — 2 out of 3 inmates — will re-offend and be back in prison.

When it comes to fatherhood and prison, we are locking too many dads in jail with little to no help.

Yesterday, I preached the Father’s Day Sermon at Victory Church in Yorktown, Virginia. The title of the sermon was “Rise Up and Walk,” based on Acts 3:1–10.

1. The message explained that the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Acts 2was the Jesus’ name power in Acts 3 that Peter and John offered to the lame man;
2. The message challenged men to get up and get moving with their lives in the name of Jesus;
3. The message showed how in the text, the lame man needed other men to help him. Peter and John commanded the man to get up and walk and then gave the man a hand up.

They reached out to grab the man’s right hand because in Hebraic tradition, the right hand is the hand of power.

The lame man needed men to empower him to do what they commanded him to do. As a result, the lame man was able to do what he had never been able to do but always wanted to do.

Father’s Day is June 19th.

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Prophesying in the Father’s Heart
An excerpt from a teaching given at the Hearing Heaven conference at Fusion Church, Auckland, New Zealand in August, 2010.